Former Governor Scott Walker Becomes Latest Rich Republican to Mislead the Public on How Taxes Work

Republicans are terrified of how popular higher taxes for the rich are.

Ever since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made the apparently scandalous suggestion that the U.S. go back to the tax rates it had for decades, her critics have been losing their minds. Specifically, rich Republicans have been acting like they have no idea what taxes are or how they work. Ocasio-Cortez was talking about a 70 percent tax rate on income over $10 million a year, but the GOP is instead claiming that it's a 70 percent tax on all income. It was dumb a week ago when all the oligarchs first started clutching their pearls, and it's just getting dumber.

Take the former governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, a darling of the uber-libertarian Koch brothers. If anyone thought he was content to just help Republicans stage a powergrab from the incoming Democratic administration and then retire to give motivation speeches on bootstrap nonsense, they were sadly mistaken. He's also showing up in middle schools to give anti-tax lectures:

Explaining tax rates before Reagan to 5th graders: “Imagine if you did chores for your grandma and she gave you $10. When you got home, your parents took $7 from you.” The students said: “That’s not fair!” Even 5th graders get it.

Hard to argue with that, right? It's literally the same nonsense that Steve Scalise and other Republicans were peddling, except instead of dumping it into the bottomless abyss of Twitter, Walker forcing it on kids. But because he was dumb enough to post it on Twitter, Ocasio-Cortez had a clap-back for him.

Explaining marginal taxes to a far-right former Governor: Imagine if you did chores for abuela & she gave you $10. When you got home, you got to keep it, because it’s only $10. Then we taxed the billionaire in town because he’s making tons of money underpaying the townspeople.

In a lengthy Boston Review essay written after the GOP tax cuts, Felicia Wong argues that there's no evidence that wealth "trickles down" just because rich people are able to hoard more money. "Taxation is at the heart of any serious economic growth policy," Wong writes, "and Democrats who want to win again must be ready to argue in favor of taxes." Unfortunately, many Democrats haven't gotten that note, including former Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who in a recent interview responded to Ocasio-Cortez's comments with the questionable claim that quick "radical" change "just doesn’t work."

But politicians like Walker and Reid who spend time with wealthy donors have good reason to be afraid of propositions to tax the rich: Apparently the idea is insanely popular. A recent poll by The Hill found that even a surprising 45 percent of Republican voters support the idea of raising the highest tax bracket to 70 percent.